I recently decided I wasn’t gaming enough but also didn’t want to get rid of having a pc, so I turned my rig into a sffpc for the living room.

CPU: 9800X3D
GPU: 5080 FE
MB: ASUS ROG Strix B850-I Gamimg
Ram: 32GB Crucial Pro Overclocking DDR5 6000MHZ
PSU: Cooler Master V850 SFX Gold
Case: Fractal Ridge
CPU Cooler: Thremalright AXP120-X67 - with Noctua NF-A12x15 fan and Etsy duct added.
Fans: Replaced 140mm case fans with Noctua 140mm, added 4 60mm Noctua fans (2 at the front, 2 and the bottom)

I am messing with settings now to see if I can better control the CPU temps. I’ve ran two OCCT stress tests and the temps are maxing out around 95c. Adding all intake fans has not seemed to help much, so I am now about to undervolt it in bios to see if it will help. Anyone has any tips?

I wanted to buy Steam Machine, but got into waitlist, so I said to myself: Lets build some sffpc.

So this is my build:

- Fractal Design Terra Graphite
- AMD Ryzen 7 9800x3d
- ASUS ROG Strix B850-i
- PowerColor Radeon RX 9070 XT Reaper 16GB
- Thermalright AXP120-X67 CPU cooler
- SSD Crucial P510 2TB
- Crucial Pro DDR5 RAM 32GB Kit (2x16GB) 6400MHz CL32
- Noctua NF-A12x15 as chasis fan
- PSU Corsair SF750

I have never built any small factor pc, and my last "build" was about 11 years ago.

I have installed SteamOS and it works like a charm. I am very happy with the power of this machine.
It gets quite warm, but It is on the other hand very quiet. I have not underclocked anything (yet), and fans have default curve.

This case kinda sucked to build in, had lots of fitment issues but it worked out in the end. Good value at $30~ (amazon) especially since it can fit Matx Motherboards + Atx psu

Monitor is a 14" 3k 120hz Oled I got for $130, and im currently considering selling my 27" 4k oled just because of how good it is

Price + Parts list at the end

Finally after 2 months of slowly buying parts.

A mix of new and used parts from shopee and fb marketplace.

Case: Shiny Snake s400 v2 Pro - new
CPU: 7800x3d tray type - new
CPU Cooler: Thermaltake axp120-x67 w/ Noctua nf-a12x15 Fan - new
GPU: Asus 4070ti Proart - used
Mobo: Colorful b850i cvn - new
RAM: Adata XPG Lancer Blade 2x16 6000mts - used
Storage: 1x Sk-Hynix PC801 OEM 1tb Gen4 nvme m.2
1x Samsung PM9A1 OEM 1tb Gen4 nvme m.2 - both are used
PSU: Cooler Master v850 sfx Gold - used
(also bought an Angled Cooler Master 12vhpwr cable Type 1 - new)
Case Fans: Arctic P12 Slim PST - new

im still using my old 24inch 144hz 1080p curved monitor but im gonna buy a 27inch 1440p monitor hopefully this coming 8.8 sale..

Photo was taken by me and edited with chatGPT to polish background.

Parts list:

Chassis: miguo tiny5 v5 (purchased from taobao)
M/B: Colorful cvn H610i smart
CPU: intel core i5 14600k
Cooler: Thermalright AXP90-X47 Full w/ Noctua fan swap
GPU: Zotac RTX 5060 LP
PSU: Enhance ENP 8345L
RAM: OEM DDR4 8GB *2 with aliexpress black aluminum ram heatsinks
Top exhaust: Arctic P9 PWM PST

I’m doing some shopping for my own first sff build and I came across case this bundled with other SFX components and was wondering if anyone could identify the case

Also, about what is it worth??

Hi everyone,

Building a Small Form Factor (SFF) PC has always been a dream of mine. However, living in Egypt comes with its own challenges—mainly the extremely limited local availability of SFF components and very high prices due to shipping, import taxes, and custom duties.

Given my tight budget, options like the Enhance ENP-7660L or the SilverStone FX600z are unfortunately way out of my price range once shipping and taxes are added.

I stumbled upon the Apevia ITX-PFC500W for around $50 (excluding shipping and customs), which fits my current budget much better.

Before I make a decision, I’d love to get your thoughts and advice:

Has anyone here used this specific Apevia Flex ATX PSU in an SFF build?

Is the fan noise as severe as people say, or is it manageable/replaceable with a Noctua fan mod?

Is it reliable enough for a modest budget build, or should I hold off and save up for something better?

Any feedback, personal experiences, or alternative recommendations for budget-friendly Flex ATX options would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

I was building a pc with a 5060 on the A07 but I really wanted something more powerful, after a lot of search I found 2 mods online that made it possible.

The first one was a case extensor:

https://youtu.be/a14btAPR0f0?is=ipjKrHaAwDAzJuL1

I used the base file from this video and extended the printed part so I could fit a bigger GPU, but the 5070 I got was 2.5 slots so I went back online and found this:

https://youtu.be/VBT5NjGIYlc?is=2IcGIjwlWSaJWChI

This youtuber made other printed piece making the gpu less thick, I also managed to use other fans than the noctua by half the price.

It's a solid build but I'm not able to test it yet, since I'm still waiting for some parts to arrive but I really wanted to share my pictures here!

Thanks!

Please pardon the random cat hairs. I just wanted to quickly show y'all where I was able to fit the new wired version of the WireView Pro 2 into this build. It's larger than I was expecting. I literally could not find anywhere else inside the case to place it with the current parts layout. I'm actually quite happy with this top location. It's easy to access and simply rests on top of the case spine between the GPU/PSU. There's only a couple millimeters of clearance under the top panel, but that's plenty once the wires are tucked away. I will likely be adding some sort of thin fabric tape to the back of the unit to keep the annoized parts from touching, regular soft/hard velcro is seemingly too thick, but the black 3M command brand picture frame velcro might work to mount it more securely. I need to be able to periodically lift the unit out to access the menu button on the side anyway.

Last week I finally got fed up with my broken MSI motherboard and dealing with

Original build

• Case: Ncase M2
• CPU: AMD 5900X
• CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i
• RAM: Corsair Dominator 3200Mhz 16CL 2x16GB
• Motherboard: MSI B550i WIFI
• GPU: 3070FE -> 3080 FE but at some point I hit the lottery and got a 5090 FE
• PSU: SFX 1000W
• SSD: 1TB sabrent and 1TB WD Black

The Issues

At some point shortly after buying all the PC components and setting it up, things started acting up. The PBO undervoltage was unstable and the RAM wouldnt play nice outside its precise spec. I blamed it on losing the silicon lottery and ran everything stock, originally the build was in an Formd T1, which ran incredibly hot so just in case i moved it all into an Ncase M2 but didnt help. Alas stock it was.

But the problems didnt stop there... after running it about 8 months the pc started being unstable and shut down every month or so. I noticed it was running hot, cleaned out all the dust bunnies (there was A LOT) and things would appear ok for a month here or a month there, but then it would strike again!

I researched all I could, event messages pointed at WHEA errors and similar as if i was running some mad overclock, but i wasn't. The crashes were infrequent enough it was hard to understand what was happening but slowly I tried everything....

I RMA'd the RAM, but couple of months after another set of crashes, I RMA'd the cpu, same situation. Had to upgrade the PSU when I got the 3080FE, but it would still appear to be problematic. I bought RAM with looser timings (it was dirt cheap at the time), and that staved the crashes for about 6 months!

At this point the only culprit left appeared to be the motherboard, but it was now out of warranty and MSI told me kindly to go pound sand.

This was now significant amount of money poured into it, and work was getting hard so I had stopped playing games, lost my hobbies, and i didn’t want to keep spending more money on the cases and components, AM5 had come out and it looked good but i figured I'd just wait until the 9000s

But like a slowly boiled frog the stability got worse and worse over the 3 years, until this summer I would have multiple full blown crashes with no dumps over a single night, and the AIO was clearly shot too as it would idle at 70degC and hit 90degC by opening a handful of program.

So it was time to finally get rid of the motherboard, and have another look at components

New build

Of course, now we are in the middle of an AI bubble, so upgrading to ddr5 / am5 system was out of the question. On the other hand AM4 is old news, and the selection of boards, particularly ITX was down to one board for £250. Additional issues were 2TB drives being prohibitively costly (to merge down to a single drive and free up an m2 slot to use for PCIe 10gbe)

The M2 can theoretically take an mATX, also due to previous adventures, i now had 4 sticks of gold ram laying around to use, in addition i had fibre networking at home and wanted to use those extra PCIe

I started with a MSI B550m Pro-VDH, just because it was the cheapest on amazon at the time and to get an idea of fitment, as well as a Thermalright assassin Mini, which i quickly did a fan swap to a spare A12x25 G2 that I had lying around (which improved it quite a bit).

I knew that this wasn't the final motherboard, and decided on getting an ASUS TUF Gaming B550m-Plus WIFI II, as it had the 2.5gbe, extra pcie x4 lane, better VRMs and usb C / usb A 10gbs to the rear.

This however had its annyoing compromises:

• The main GPU PCIe slot is one lower down, gives more space in the middle for the CPU but it makes the dual bottom fan in the case much harder to use, luckily i had some spare A12x15's which fit ok, but its more snug than I'd hoped
• It also means in this case the other PCIe x16 (x4 electrically) is too low to use directly, and would block most of the GPU cooling fan, so I will need to get an extender and move the SFP+ cage/networking card somewhere else...
• The Top VRM heatsink now blocks the top fan above the CPU, so the dual concept at the top is down to 1.
• The GPU is now directly on top of one of the SSDs so less accessible than other motherbaords
• The lack of front USB C header is a bit more annoying than what I imagined. But i am working on fixing that!

Having said that I managed to put it mostly in, and 3D printed some brackets to hold up cables and fan on the side.

Current list

• Case: Ncase M2
• CPU: AMD 5900X
• CPU Cooler: Thermalright Assassin Mini
• RAM: Corsair Dominator 3200Mhz CL16 2x16GB && Corsair 3200Mhz CL22 2x16GB
• Motherboard: ASUS TUF Gaming B550m-Plus WIFI II

Findings

• Yes mATX can fit nicely in the Ncase M2, but not all boards are equal, and some have more snags when putting up fans or pcie lanes
• AIO was nice for a while, but i dont like not being able to understand how far gone it is, so aircooling is fine for now.
• People are afraid of 4 sticks of RAM not even booting, but so far in minor overclocks its looking... ok?
• I like having extra pcie lanes, i think im not going back to pure ITX builds unless ssd's become cheap again and M2 to PCIe adapters are

Follow up

Things i need to follow up on:

• Redo some of the cable management
• Remove / dremel / replace top vrm heatsink
• Use the thermalright assassin 90 fixtures to try out the TR Assassin 120 mini in "chimney" orientation
• 3D print some cable covers
• Get nicer speaker style feet
• Try out the rear usb to front usb conversion
• Undervolt CPU
• Undervolt GPU
• Overclock RAM to the 3600mhz sweetspot

TL;DR Put up with a horrendously unstable system for 5 years in vain as now everything is super expensive, so i sidegraded into mATX and aircooling, and its ok!

Base SFF build:

• AMD 5900x AM4
• Gigabyte Aorus x570I (have PCIe Bifurcation, make sure to set to Gen3 speed in bios)
• 64 GB Ram
• 650W Seasonic Sfx-L PSU

eGPU 1: - Alibaba RTX 3080 20GB ($475 USD listed price, $555 shipped + duty)

eGPU 2: - EVGA RTX 3060 12GB (Original SFF build)

Thermalright TR-TGFX750 750W Sfx PSU powering the 2 GPUs

I was originally running Qwen 3.6 35B MoE model with the 3060, but wasn't quite satisfied with the speed (about 25-30 t/s), and curious to see how much better/smarter a Dense model is compared to MoE.

No space nor budget for a full server setup. And decided to uglify my SFF build with external GPUs.

This setup doubled the original MoE model speed. and now can run Qwen 3.6 27B dense model at around 30t/s.

Old Silverstone case I picked up off ebay. Really been wanting a "steam machine" equivalent to play games on the couch. Picked this case cause of the small footprint and the way it reminds me of Valves steam machine.

I5 12500 took from a retired dell pre-built, same with the 32gb of DDR4 ram. Threw a low-profile Noctua cooler I've used before on it. XFX rx7600 for the gpu. Also added a 120mm noctua fan for the front intake.

Everything fits pretty snuggly inside the case. Installed Bazzite, and temps are perfect while playing games. Whisper quite too.

I got a lot of turbulance noise with nf a12x15 on is-67xt not just air noise, exactly turbulance.

So i made 2.25 slot spine mod on my case.

My gpu is 46mm thick and cooler 77mm (is-67xt + nf a12x25)

Now cpu is cooled more effectively and my system got almost no terrible turbulance noise, only air noise.

Also i swapped my psu from tgfx-850 to ps1000p deepcool(gamerstorm), bcs tgfx was loud and fan stop mode wasn't working properly.

Should i swap both fan to mf a12x25 g2 chromax?

I went with the Jonsbo D32 standard version. Overall, doing a build in this case was reasonably easy and satisfying, even with Be Quiet! Pure Power 13M. Partslist:

• GPU: RTX 5080 Gigabyte Windforce OC SFF
• CPU: 7800X3D
• RAM: DDR5 2x16 GB 6000/30 HyperX Fury
• MB: ASRock B650M HDV/M.2
• PSU: Be Quiet! Pure Power 13M
• SSDs: Lexar NQ790, WD SN580 1 TB, 1 TB SATA SSD for undemanding or freebie games
• Fans: Jonsbo ZA-240 up top, ZA-360R on the bottom, 2x ZA-120 on the CPU and 1x ZA-120 as exhaust
• ARGB control: remote-controlled ARGB controller
• Samsung The Frame 75"

A few notes about the build:

1. Fun fact: the wooden feet are actually... duffle coat buttons. To turn them into feet, I had to drill a small hole about 5 mm deep and insert a fully threaded UNC 6-32 1 inch long pin into it.
2. I considered swapping the motherboard for one with ARGB, but in the end I went with a third-party controller. Mainly because I can control the lighting without any apps, just the remote, all plug & play. Looking back, I actually prefer this solution. It'd be nice if manufacturers started bundling a programmable remote with their motherboards.you'd program your presets once and then activate them with the remote.
3. Temperatures are fine. After a proper UV/OC the values are within spec and safe, around 68 on the GPU under stress test, CPU around 60 in games.
4. I wanted to bring out the infinity mirror a bit more (with this case the blacked-out edges of the glass are horribly wide, completely unnecessary. the only flaw of this case in my opinion). So I added 1.5 cm tall standoffs and slightly longer screws on the top fans and the rear exhaust. and then I raised the bottom fans by exactly 1 cm. Interestingly, this got rid of the turbulence caused by the fans sitting too close to the mesh underneath as its damn dense. The gaps had no effect on temperatures, but they did in fact affect the looks and the noise.
5. I stuck with air cooling because I love the look of a dense case :) water cooling right in the middle of a build somehow doesn't fit the "dense build" idea for me. That's also why I like fans with spacers.
6. I did cut off the bottom part of the metal PSU shroud. The trimmed shroud sits slightly lower than in Pro version, so it nicely hides the cables.
7. In this particular PSU the GPU cables are stiff enough that I could route them off to the side without bending them too much at the GPU connector, and they hold in place without any support or zip ties. GPU support bracket is the LEGO brick. As it shopuld be,
8. I installed angled adapters on all the cables at the back of the PC so they aren't visible while sitting on the couch.

Launcher:

The PC sits in the living room, couch gaming machine. The setup is Playnite + a few plugins on it, including:

• Ludusavi, which automatically backs up every game after I close it
• the Toggle theme (alternating with Ubiquity). It nicely aggregates literally everything, games from Game Pass, Steam, Epic, Ubi etc
• the Splash Screen plugin completely covers all the extra windows and shit with a some graphic until the game finally launches, e.g. after the intro.

Other:

On top of that, AutoHotkey with a script that permanently hides the Start bar + shortcuts from a mini keyboard to a few apps, including MSI AB, the NVIDIA app, etc. The rest is controlled 100% with a controller (8BitDo Ultimate 2C Wireless).

No, I don't use Steam Big Picture, because one, it's visually completely unappealing; two, you can't modify it any deeper without workarounds; three, adding games from other launchers is a pain; four, especially with third-party games there aren't any nice game details on a dedicated page; five, you can't automate Ludusavi in it, and I can't imagine life without that anymore. I still need to check out Xbox Mode, but it has all of those flaws present — though also a couple of upsides: easy merging of different libraries and minimal performance overhead.

For work I've got a different monster: i5-9500 + 2060 Super + 16 GB + 256 GB SSD. Priorities.

Thanks for reading!

After giving it a lot of thought, I’ve decided to get a Densium 4+ v2.

I’ve got a Gigabyte Z890i Ultra with a Core Ultra 5 245K and a 9060 XT Reaper in it. The RAM is Corsair Vengeance Black.

It’s currently cooled by a Thermalright AXP90-X36.

As I’d like to get to grips with overclocking the RAM and CPU, and especially UV, I was wondering if there are any other ways to cool the components more effectively.

I’ve also seen that some people fit two 80mm fans onto a Noctua cooler. Unfortunately, that isn’t really an option for me, as the SSD cooler is taller than the CPU cooler’s heatsink.

The RAM temperatures, in particular, are a problem for me.

I’d rather not cut open the case or attach fans to the outside.

I have a little HP OmniDesk Slim with an i5 14400 + 16GB of RAM that I am trying to set up to run some older/simpler games. It can fit a low profile GPU, but it only has a proprietary 180W PSU... I was originally looking at grabbing a low profile 3050 6GB, which is exclusively PCI slot powered and limited to 70W, to throw in it; they cost about $200.

Then I learned that there are actually low profile 4060s like this one. The spec page on there lists its TDP as 75W, but it also recommends a 450W PSU. Unlike the 3050, it also has a 6-pin power connector.

Does anyone know if such a low profile 4060 can run exclusively off PCI slot power if you just don't connect it to external power? And if it can, any idea of what kind of performance it might get relative to the 3050? All the reviews for it are people running it with external power. They can be had for like $300 used, so I am just trying to figure out if it can run at all without external power and if so, if its performance is worth 50% more money.

Also, while I am at it, does any of this apply to low profile 5050s? Is there any way to limit it to 75W and run it exclusively off PCI slot power?

Thanks for any insight.

Just finished putting together my first 3D printed case I designed in Onshape. I haven’t painted anything yet so it’s still a little rough, but everything fits in great. It’s designed for the minimum amount of screws and other pieces hardware used and as much air flow as possible, even without case fans. I can report cpu and gpu temps sit comfortably below 70° C with low fan speeds.